Event Details

Contaminated Car Canyons or Beautiful Boulevards – how should we influence London’s major roads?

An exhibition and discussion of ideas about the future of London’s major arterial roads – how can we Create Boulevards for London?

In a city the size of London, do we need to accept that our major roads will be unpleasant and polluted and that it’s the price we pay for getting around smoothly? Or can we free our streets from the tyranny of traffic, and make them attractive places that people want to be in and live on – but if so, how will we get around?

Do the qualified professionals working for councils, urban designers and architects know best? Or should communities take the lead in deciding how their major streets look and feel?

London desperately needs more homes, so should we let developers build as intensely as possible, and not let communities reject solutions that could solve the housing crisis? Or should we ensure that local residents take the lead in deciding what is built in their area – but how will we get the homes London needs?

Over the last few months, Create Streets have arranged for communities and architects across London to team up for mini-charrettes where they have together created their vision for Boulevards in their local area.

The mini-charrettes were run with HTA Design in Grove Park in Lewisham, JTP Architects on the Holloway Road, Islington and Urban Engineering Studio and Alexandra Steed Urban at Clapham Road in Lambeth.

On Friday 30th of June, please join us for an entertaining and enlightening discussion as part of the London Festival of Architecture. We will exhibit the outcomes of these fantastic workshops and discuss how London can go about Creating boulevards like these in the future.

With a panel of industry experts and local residents, we will be discussing the future of London’s major roads, and how we can move towards making them more attractive, popular places in which people want to live, work and play – and how communities, architects, local government and investors can work together to that end.

As it's a Friday, we'll be making sure it's a fun and relaxing way to end your week, and kick-start your weekend. Join us from 5.30 onwards to view the exhibition of ideas for London's boulevards with a glass of wine or beer. The discussion will begin around 6 - in which we'll be very open to questions and ideas from the audience.

Do sign up to join us for what promises to be an enjoyable, inspiring and thought-provoking evening.

When & Where

The Gallery
70 Cowcross Street
EC1M 6EJ London
United Kingdom

Friday, 30 June 2017 from 17:30 to 20:00 (BST)

Organiser

Create Streets

Create Streets is a non-partisan social enterprise and independent research institute focusing on the built environment. We encourage the creation of more and better urban homes with terraced streets of houses and apartments rather than complex multi-storey buildings. We support reform of the planning system to make it more effectively responsive to what people like in the built environment and campaign for community-led building and locally-supported estate regeneration to deliver homes that are popular and stand the test of time.